Anyone who has to provide 21 meals a week for a hungry family probably considers cooking a chore. Anyone who lives alone probably considers cooking a chore. In fact, the day-in, day-out preparation of meals can get boring very quickly. Worse than the preparation, and resulting clean up, is coming up with ideas of what to prepare. Children and other picky eaters in the house can make the task more difficult. If you eliminate the foods and dishes that they won’t touch, your repertoire is greatly reduced. This is especially true if you are trying to get away from junk food and to introduce a reasonably healthy diet on a budget.
It is all very well to say that if they don’t like it they can go hungry. In practice, it is easier to go with dishes you know will be eaten and avoid whining, pouting and more food left on the plate than eaten. However, there are some strategies that can be employed to ease the cook’s boredom with the job and, at the same time, increase the range of wholesome foods that are palatable to everyone in the family, all without breaking the bank.
Here planning is the main key. This can be as complicated as preparing a detailed menu for every meal for a month, with a weekly ingredient list to take to the grocery store, or as simple as having a master plan for a week, and a store cupboard full of staples and frequently used items like pasta, rice, beans. If you opt for the former idea, you have crossed the line from cooking as a chore to cooking as an obsession. But a generic weekly plan is a very useful tool. By including breakfast, lunch, after school snack and dinner in the plan, you are able, over the course of a week, to give the family a well-balanced diet. There is usually one night a week when everyone is available to sit down and eat together. Let us say that this is Sunday. Sunday then becomes the experimental day when you seek out an entirely new recipe with, maybe one, unknown ingredient, and you prepare a meal that one might hope to get in a restaurant, complete with starter, sides and dessert. With enough choices, no one will go hungry and with luck, you will have a new recipe to add to the family files.
On Monday you may have the option of left-over for dinner, so Monday could be a rice or pasta day. Pasta and vegetables or risotto with slivers of meat from a roast are easy and delicious. With a good mixed salad on the side and cheese and crackers to follow, you have a perfect meal. Other days could be chicken and grains like barley or quinoa, eggs and bread, pork and beans, fish and rice or couscous, beef and (of course) potatoes. Any leftovers can be used as the base for a lunchtime salad the following day, or turned into a soup, also for lunch. With this basic plan you collect suitable recipes, develop a checklist of essential ingredients to have in pantry, fridge or freezer, and develop a budget. By preparing similar dishes each week, you are going to keep your costs fairly even.
If you can elevate time spent in the kitchen to the level of pastime or hobby, it will be less of a chore for you and your family will appreciate higher quality of the meals. By developing a passion for cooking, you soon find that there is nothing else you would rather be doing and, suddenly it is no longer a drudge, but a real pleasure. Build on the aspects of cooking that you already enjoy. Maybe it is baking, maybe it is finger foods, and maybe it is Chinese or the cuisine of your ancestors. Go to the library and get out a few cookery books.